A Poison Tree

By William Blake

A Poison Tree

By William Blake

Theme

The theme of the poem is that if anger is hidden then it will turn into a bigger, more distructive force. This is developed this through the two storys shown through the poem. In the first story, he is mad with his friend. He tells his friend that he is mad and the anger in him disappers. In the second story he has the anger in him, but he does not tell his friend about is. His anger increases to a point where he kills his friend over his anger.

Poetic Devices

There were a few poetic devices in this poem. One of those were rhyme scheme. The rhyme scheme of this poem is AABB. This means that the poems first and second lines rhyme along with the third and fourth lines rhyme. The rhyme creates rhythem. The rhythem adds a beat to the poem and makes it more appealing to the reader. The repition throughout the poem is created in the beginning by the phrases "I told" and "I was angry" and in the end by the repeted word "And". There is also some figurative language in the poem. The first one that I found was Imagery. The entire poem explanes what his face looks like and what his "friend" looked like under the tree. The other one that was most obious to me was the extended metaphor of the "Poison Tree." The amount of poison in the tree represented the amount of anger the speaker had. It got so much that it killed the friend.

The speaker

The speaker of this poem is a person who has killed his friend because he did not tell his friend and did not reconize that he was mad and angry. His attuitude twards the subject was crucial to the poem because the extended metaphor of the poem was about his feelings. He felt that he should not forgive his friend and he should not accept his anger. Without his feelings twards his friend, there would not be a problem.

This image shows the image the speaker plants into your mind with the sentance "Till it bore an apple bright. And my foe beheld it shine,". This ties in with the mood because it represents the mood of darkness.

This image shows the speakers friend "outstreached beneath the tree". It ties with the mood of sorrow and anger.

This picture shows the poison tree. It represent the overall mood of anger and sadness.